How To Use Mortifying In A Sentence
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In the opening to The Human Stain, author Philip Roth's narrator, Nathan Zuckerman, describes the summer of 1998, when "Bill Clinton's secret" - about Monica - "emerged in every last mortifying detail - every last lifelike detail, the livingness, like the mortification, exuded by the pungency of the specific data.
Michael Takiff: Bill Clinton, Still the Biggest Dog in Town
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To detect the pheromones in that urine some mammals touch the liquid and do a distinctive, mortifying, lip-curling grimace called flehmen.
INSIDE OF A DOG
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As Dave Lopez, the state's secretary of commerce and tourism told me at a breakfast last month, the answer was as mortifying as being the last kid picked for a sandlot ball game; United executives "couldn't imagine living in Oklahoma.
Christine Negroni: Thunder and Aerospace A Winning Combination
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She felt it would be utterly mortifying to be seen in such company as his by anyone.
MISS MELVILLE REGRETS
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Margaret, with feigned simplicity, but far from being sorry at heart, that she had found an indirect mode of mortifying her monitress.
The Fortunes of Nigel
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Which could, obviously, be socially mortifying for her adolescent sons.
Times, Sunday Times
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His path was called ‘the Middle Way’, between life in society (seeking pleasures) and the life of a rigorous ascetic (fasting and mortifying the flesh).
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F-Word Brenda, as she's known wherever the ghosts of Dorothy Parker and George S. Kaufman take tea, recalls the mortifying experience of promoting her memoir The Nearly Departed, a succession of embarrassments certain to give any writer a sympathetic shudder.
The Plinth and the Pauper (mildly updated): James Wolcott
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When one considers impartially, the merit of a rich suit of clothes in most places, the respect and the smiles of favour it procures, not to speak of the envy and the sighs it occasions (which is very often the principal charm to the wearer), one is forced to confess, that there is need of an uncommon understanding to resift the temptation of pleasing friends and mortifying rivals; and that it is natural to young people to fall into a folly, which betrays them to that want of money which is the source of a thousand basenesses (sic).
Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M--y W--y M--e
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How do you quantify the value of these mortifying but essential experiences?
Times, Sunday Times
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It's a form of catharsis that by mortifying flesh you will actually develop your spiritual side.
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And how mortifying it had remained for Nathan that he had been too weak to defy his big brother.
OUT OF THE ASHES
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The botched banquet is a mortifying experience, and in my time I have served squid cooked until it had the texture, nutritional value and masticatory pleasure of a big rubber band.
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The same thing applies to the membrane which surrounds the brain: for when, by sawing the bone, and removing it from the meninx, you lay the latter bare, you must make it clean and dry as quickly as possible, lest being in a moist state for a considerable time, it become soaked therewith and swelled; for when these things occur, there is danger of its mortifying.
On Injuries Of The Head
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It's mortifying that my middle-aged mother is marrying a guy who is only four years older than me.
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But the real news was that I had gone on record with my sexual orientation, and the tempest this created in the media teapot was nothing short of mortifying, particularly for someone utterly unacquainted with the vagaries of celebrity.
My Coming Out Do-Over
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When he fully understood the nature of my situation, in invincible aversion to Sir John Belgrave, and my fears, which, mortifying as they must be to him, I could not help expressing, lest his father should prevail on Mrs Newill to betray me entirely into his power – he expressed in his rough sea language so much pity for me, and so much indignation at the conduct of his family, that I became persuaded I might trust him.
The Old Manor House
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As there was no love between them, fear no longer availed; and as Rolandine saw plainly that a reprimand so publicly given was prompted less by regard for her than by the wish to put her to shame, and that the queen was more pleased in mortifying her than grieved to find her in fault, she replied with an air as calm and composed as that of the queen was agitated and passionate, If you did not know your own heart, madam, I would set before you the bad feeling you have long entertained towards my father and me; but you know it so well, that you will not be surprised to hear that it is not a secret for anybody.
The Heptameron of Margaret, Queen of Navarre
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Stoics sought to free themselves from bodily concerns by philosophical contemplation, while some Christians found value in mortifying the flesh, thereby turning their thoughts to the immortality of the soul.
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How mortifying to have to apologize to him!
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In short, she did not like, as she phrased it, "to be shaken off;" and after a sleepless night she resolved to judge for herself, much moved thereto by the malicious suggestions to that effect made by Mr. Sprott, who mightily enjoyed the idea of mortifying the gentlemen by whom he had been so disrespectfully threatened with the treadmill.
My Novel — Volume 06
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Therefore, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Clinton, and his other formidable enemies have a large measure of excuse for their conduct, especially as they were seldom unstung by mortifying defeat.
The Conqueror
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A pedlar, too, who has got through a portion of the Excursion before the sun has illumed the mountain-tops, is mortifying, with his piled pack and ellwand.
Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2
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In each a character clinging absurdly to a sense of his own emotional insignificance is finally moved, despite himself, to embrace life's complex if at times mortifying drama.
You Might as Well Live
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As a Leicester City fan I think the words 'mortifying' and 'shocking' could easily describe Yann Kermogant's penalty, which in turn allowed Cardiff to defend so badly at Wembley, giving Blackpool the 'Premier League side' prefix they now enjoy" - Simon Eaton.
Comical Instance Of Defensive Bungling
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Captain Aresby also advanced, to tell her he was quite _abattu_ by having so long lost sight of her, to hope she _would make a renounce_ of mortifying the world by discarding it, and to protest he had waited for his carriage till he was actually upon the point of being [_accable_.]
Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 1
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How do you quantify the value of these mortifying but essential experiences?
Times, Sunday Times
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The idea of being a burden to you and your sister is mortifying.
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Failure that is so mortifying and so devastating that it makes you try to become invisible.
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To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying.
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‘Yeah… it's mortifying to know what happened to him’, Maria remarked.
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But we confess that it is a little mortifying to our pride of time and place, to meet an old beggar-woman, who from the dust on her tattered brogues has evidently marched miles from her last night's wayside howf, and who holds out her withered palm for charity, at an hour when a cripple of fourscore might have been supposed sleeping on her pallet of straw.
Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2
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In the e-mail, I thought to myself, I would explicate my apparent teenage gawkiness from the previous day as the consequence of being mortifyingly embarrassed and hapless.
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To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying.
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The gospel of Christ is not accommodated to the fain fancies and lusts of men, to gratify their appetites and passions; but, on the contrary, it was designed for the mortifying of their corrupt affections, and delivering them from the power of fancy, that they might be brought under the power of faith.
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume VI (Acts to Revelation)
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[13] I passed thro that city & should like to see his hymn upon the occasion & if there be any good in it, put it in a note. how mortifying is this confinement of yours — I had planned so many pleasant walks to be made so much more pleasant by conversation. for I have much to tell thee. much to say of the odd things we saw upon our journey Much of the dirt & vermin that annoyd us.
Letter 165
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After lunch, a rather mortifying family tradition. They do things differently in bourgeois bohemia.
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it was mortifying to know he had heard every word
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All allusions, therefore, recalling his mortifying defeat were disagreeable to him.
Frank's Campaign, or, Farm and Camp
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Roused to frenzy by the loss of his queen, the king goes in pursuit, belabouring whomsoever he finds and meeting with mortifying adventures.
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Either of them had only to mention the word "mortifying" to send
Tales of the Jazz Age
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How do you quantify the value of these mortifying but essential experiences?
Times, Sunday Times
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Captain Aresby also advanced, to tell her he was quite abattu by having so long lost sight of her, to hope she would make a renounce of mortifying the world by discarding it, and to protest he had waited for his carriage till he was actually upon the point of being
Cecilia
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There was room for two people to move comfortably, and a little altar of rock, at which Probus had prayed from sunrise to sunset, mortifying the flesh, dreaming of the Millennium.
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Which could, obviously, be socially mortifying for her adolescent sons.
Times, Sunday Times
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Beckham's sons prove that having a himbo for a daddy can be just as mortifying as having a supposed bimbo for a mummy.
It's older people's attitude to drugs that is a killer | Barbara Ellen
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The scent was overripe, oversweet, mortifying and fructifying.
Wildfire
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Who knows better than artists how much ugliness there is on the way to beauty, how many ghastly, mortifying missteps, how many days of granitic blockheadedness and dismaying ineptitude there is on the way to accomplishment, how partial all accomplishment is, how incomplete?
Tony Kushner At The School Of Visual Arts: 'Artists Know That Diligence Counts As Much, If Not More, As Inspiration'
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Marianne finds this attention mortifying, as she thinks the Colonel, who is thirty-five and talks of flannel waistcoats, is too old to be a lover.
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It's mortifying for a girl in ancient girl to marry twice.
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But then, if financial scandals made you blush, the entire reconstruction of the country would be pretty mortifying.
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The first object on which the blacksmith's eyes rested kindled him with indignation, and recalled mortifying memories.
The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus
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– And indeed it was on these occasions that Mrs Rayland seemed to take peculiar pleasure in mortifying Mrs Somerive and her daughters; who dreaded these dinner days as those of the greatest penance; and who at Christmas, one of the periods of these formal dinners, have blest more than once the propitious snow; through which that important and magisterial personage, the body coachman of Mrs Rayland, did not choose to venture himself, or the six sleek animals of which he was sole governor; for on these occasions it was the established rule to send for the family, with the same solemnity and the same parade that had been used ever since the first sullen and reluctant reconciliation between Sir Hildebrand and his sister; when she dared to deviate from the fastidious arrogance of her family, and to marry a man who farmed his own estate – and who, though long settled as a very respectable land-owner, had not yet written Armiger after his name.
The Old Manor House
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If there is no more posting for a few hours, it will be because the Professor is mortifying the flesh with whips, chains and other penitent aids.
